President Donald Trump's budget proposal slashing funds for scientific research was declared "dead on arrival" when it reached Congress.

But as the 2018 fiscal year begins Sunday, questions remain about important programs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory now that Republicans control the national government.

Some areas, such as supercomputing, are sure winners as the House and Senate reconcile their spending plans. Other programs, including participation in a global effort to harness fusion power, are at risk.

Under Trump's proposed 17 percent cut to the Office of Science, which funds much of the work at 10 national laboratories, ORNL would have had to lay off 33 percent of its workforce.

Instead, the House’s proposed budget hands the office the same amount it has had this past fiscal year, about $5.35 billion, and the Senate’s bill increases funding by $150 million, to a record $5.5 billion.

Safe zones

Two areas with that office stand out as safe zones whichever way the Office of Science budget goes: supercomputing and basic energy sciences.

“(They) are areas where the United States should remain a leader for future generations,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., at a hearing on the president’s budget request in June. Alexander chairs the Senate Energy and Water Development subcommittee, which drafts the Senate’s energy budget proposal each year.

Supercomputing – or advanced scientific computing research – in particular, has been the recent darling of federal R&D investment.

“It’s the advantage it gives to the United States in creating new jobs and national security,” Alexander said.

The Senate is recommending a record 17 percent increase in the supercomputing budget, to $763 million. The Trump administration, too, prioritized supercomputing with a budget request of $722 million. Only the House is proposing a decrease, to $524 million.

ORNL's slice of that pie is substantial. From about $12.4 million in 2000, the lab's supercomputer budget had risen tenfold by 2015, to $124.3 million. The following year, that amount more than doubled to $266.6 million.

“We expect that sort of effort to continue,” said Jeff Smith, ORNL Deputy Director of Operations. “We believe the House and Senate both are going to continue to support supercomputing and we expect it to continue to be a strong part of the laboratory's budget.”

A billion billion computations

ORNL is home to the Titan supercomputer. Once the most powerful computer in the world, it dropped to fourth place in June. The system can make 27 quadrillion calculations per second, measured as 27 petaflops.

The lab now is in the process of upgrading to a hybrid supercomputer called Summit, expanding that capability to between 150 and 300 petaflops.

That's nothing compared to what's ahead.

The administration and appropriators all are interested in developing the world's first exascale computer by 2021. The president's budget allocated $197 million toward the goal,plus additional funds to prepare the physical infrastructure of the machine.

An exascale computer would be capable of making one quintillion–or one billion billion–calculations per second, measured as one exaflop. That’s about 50 times faster than the nation’s most powerful supercomputer in use now.

Though the House has expressed some concern over changes made to the project and its cost analysis, it still is recommending spending $170 million. The Senate is suggesting $184 million.

Stripping protons from atoms

Another ORNL facility that attracts national and international attention is the Spallation Neutron Source, which falls under the basic energy sciences program. Funding for that program has climbed from $115 million in 2000 to nearly three times that with the completion of the SNS 10 years ago.

The facility’s accelerator beams strip protons from their atoms, fires them through a tunnel as long as three football fields, then slam them into a mercury target. This scatters – or "spalls" – neutrons. Beams of neutrons then are guided into specialized instruments that are unlocking secrets in the fields of physics, material sciences and biology.

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The klystron gallery inside the linear accelerator, or LINAC, building at the Oak Ridge National Lab Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Wednesday, April 26, 2017.(Photo: Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel)

Scientists have even used the SNS to discover a bizarre fourth state of water called "tunneling," in which the hydrogen atom of H2O is not in a single position but smeared into a ring shape.

“There’s no other facility that can do that material research,” said Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn.

Given its broad scientific application, demand for beam time at the facility is higher than ever, and scientists come from all over the world to use the neutron source.

The Department of Energy has been planning a $200 million proton-power upgrade for the facility and eventually a $1 billion second target station, which would allow for new and different applications.

Though Trump suggested cutting the national basic energy sciences budget, which includes SNS, from $1.6 billion to $1.3 billion, the House has recommended keeping funding the same.

The Senate wants a $300 million increase, funding the research area at nearly $2 billion. Of that amount, $26 million would be directed toward the SNS proton-power upgrade.

“It’s important because of neutron research materials that will basically allow America to be No. 1 in that field,” Fleischmann said. “It is something that is really unique to the world that we have at Oak Ridge, and that is something that Republicans and Democrats value as part of our great research and development.”

Partisan programs

Besides the work funded by the Office of Science, ORNL does important research that is part of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Funding for these programs tends to be more politically driven.

At ORNL, vehicle technology research, building technologies, advanced manufacturing, weatherization and biomass fuel research all fall under EERE.

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Zachary Hood, Georgia Tech graduate student, holds tire-derived carbon and used cooking oil in the lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

Zachary Hood, Georgia Tech graduate student adds cooking oil and methanol along with a catalyst in a round bottom flash in the lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

A vial of biodiesel is shown at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

Research group members from left, Dr. Amit Naskar, group leader and senior research and development staffer, Zachary Hood, Georgia Tech graduate student and Dr. Parans Paranthaman, group leader and ORNL corporate fellow, pose for a photo in their lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

Zachary Hood, Georgia Tech graduate student adds cooking oil and methanol along with a catalyst in a round bottom flask in the lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

Zachary Hood, Georgia Tech graduate student, works in the lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

Zachary Hood, Georgia Tech graduate student, collects tire-derived carbon after paralysis from a furnace at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

The lab space at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

Parans Paranthaman, group leader and ORNL corporate fellow, speaks in the lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

A round bottom flask containing tire-derived carbon, methanol and a catalyst at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Tuesday, August 8, 2017. The team has discovered a way to derive biodiesel from catalyzing cooking oil and carbon from old rubber tires.
Calvin Mattheis, Knoxville News Sentinel

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The lab's EERE research budget sunk to about $75 million in 2006 under George W. Bush, when the Senate and House were both under Republican control. After President Barack Obama took office, the economic stimulus nearly tripled the amount of funding for ORNL’s EERE.

Even after stimulus funding ended, ORNL’s EERE budget did not sink below the high $90 millions. But the current Republican administration could change that. Trump wants to cut the office by nearly 70 percent, and the House wants to cut it roughly in half. The Senate has proposed only a seven percent trim of EERE funds.

“There’s a give and take in the negotiations between all three bodies,” said Fleischmann, who supports EERE because ORNL is directly involved with it. “I think what you’ll see is an agreement to see that propped up by the Senate.”

The House and Senate have also proposed much more modest cuts than the president to research into nuclear energy and the efficient use of fossil fuels.

Trump - who ran on a promise to create jobs by increasing the nation's use of coal -proposed cutting the Office of Fossil Energy's budget by more than half. That office's research deals with efficiency in the use of fossil fuels and sustainability.

The administration also proposed cutting nearly half the budget of the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, and around 30 percent from the Office of Nuclear Energy.

Those are areas of research, Smith said, where debates are more “partisan.” The GOP has historically opposed the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, though the Department of Energy has said the program gives taxpayers a 20 percent return on investment by lowering the cost of utilities.

On the chopping block

The House and the Senate are at odds over two other areas of funding.

The struggle is between senators who want to place bets on high-risk, high-reward energy science and congressmen who want to continue funding an international project to harness fusion in hopes of creating a cheap, clean, inexhaustible source of energy.

One of the two is likely to be completely shut down.

The Senate has traditionally supported the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a loan program that funds high-risk projects. ORNL is participating in 11 ARPA-E projects studying vehicle technology, the electricity grid, and building and manufacturing efficiency. The Tennessee lab is the leader on five of those projects.

Alexander believes the program helps make the United States a world leader in science. The president, however, not only suggested cutting the program completely but also freezing its remaining assets and using them to shut it down.

The House also wants to slash ARPA-E.

“My fervent request is to continue and will be to continue robust funding for Oak Ridge National Laboratory and all of its endeavors," Fleischmann said. "But, there are certain things that we need to prioritize.”

A priority for the House of Representatives is the United States’ involvement in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a fusion energy program involving six countries and the European Union.

The project would be the world's first magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment, aimed at creating a reactor that produces much more energy than it uses.

The ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) 3D plasma equilibrium with ripple contours. This figure shows the ITER plasma surface and toroidal magnetic field coils; color contours indicate local magnetic strength. The wavy structure of the contour lines is caused by deviations from axisymmetry due to the finite number of toroidal field coils and the presence of ferritic materials in three test blanket modules, which are located on one side of the torus. (ORNL image)

The European Union is footing the bill for at least half the project. The United States funds about nine percent of it.

The Senate is less enthusiastic about ITER. In fact, this is the fifth fiscal year that the Senate has proposed leaving the project. That resistance has resulted in a series cuts to ORNL's Fusion Energy Sciences and to the U.S ITER Office, which Oak Ridge hosts, in recent years.

“We have to set priorities," Alexander said. "We don’t have money for everything."

The U.S. ITER office received just half the $100 million in funding it requested for Fiscal Year 2017, resulting in the layoff of approximately 20 contractors.

Congress is unlikely to make any decisions on spending for several weeks. The House passed a package of appropriations bills in September, but the Senate has yet to finish any of its spending bills. As a result, Congress has agreed to continue government funding at current levels until Dec. 8. It's doubtful any decisions will be made before then.